Beauty, Sleeping
by pvoberstein
Summary: Two years into her graduate studies, Ami Mizuno is pushing her mind to its limits and her body to exhaustion. Makoto does what she can to keep the genius from burning herself out. Post-canon, Ami/Makoto.


_BEEP … BEEP … BEEP_

The chirping microwave tore Makoto's attention from the television, a brand-new Sony Trinitron that was no doubt as expensive as every else in the Mizuno _okushon_. Even after living several months as an unofficial tenant in Dr. Mizuno's unspeakably luxurious condominium, Makoto Kino still felt a bit like a fish out of water, walking on marble floors and trying not to trip over diamond jewelry. She even had her own drawer for her clothing now, but the fact that it was within a walk-in closet didn't do much to put her at ease.

"Ami! Popcorn's ready!"

Makoto poured the freshly-popped corn into a big wooden bowl, before making her way to the couch, careful not to wipe buttery fingers on the upholstery. Fumbling around for the remote, Makoto flipped up to channel twelve - TV Tokyo - just as the powerful voice of Masami Okui began belting out the theme song.

"Show's starting!" she called out again, popping a buttery flake into her mouth. She generally preferred stovetop popcorn herself, but the Mizunos only had the microwaveable kind, and lacked the paprika that was Makoto's preferred seasoning, anyways. Neither Makoto nor Ami were particularly fervent television watchers (Usagi, they joked, did enough for the three of them), but this particular program had come recommend by no less an authority than Michiru Kaiou, who's artistic tastes Ami was inclined to defer to.

More importantly for Makoto, it was the closest thing to a 'date night' as she could extract from the woman. Ami was two years into her graduate studies, and the pressures were growing with each passing semester. Not that Ami was doing herself any favors, in Makoto's humble (and unasked-for) opinion. Ami had basically badgered the Todai administration until they'd let her create her own course of study, some ungodly double-degree program that was a mix of computer science and medical studies and enough extra credits to make even the most overachieving student pale.

It was an unreservedly punishing curriculum, but as much as Usagi and Minako and even Mamoru expressed their nervousness about the workload to Ami, Makoto herself… couldn't. It was, at least academically speaking, the first time that Ami had been able to fully unleash herself, to push that beautiful brain to its absolute limit. Makoto hadn't quite appreciated just how over-prepared Ami had been during high school, tutoring her friends in physics and math at a level she'd mastered years ago. Even as she'd topped every academic ranking during her years at Juuban, Ami Mizuno had been holding back, Makoto had come to appreciate. Ami could've skipped whole grades with an I.Q. like hers, but she'd taken it slow, staying with her age cohort even as she mentally surpassed them by leaps and bounds. Ami had finally unleashed herself in university, swimming freely in its seemingly bottomless depths of knowledge. And so Makoto had taken it upon herself to make sure the senshi of water and wisdom didn't drown.

Which was exactly what nights like tonight were supposed to be for. Not great escapes, just moments of relief, a couple of hours for Ami to come up for air. Because for all her brilliance, Miss Mizuno had somehow forgotten to schedule in time to _breathe_.

"_Anime time!_"

Makoto walked into the study, prepared to (very lovingly) drag Ami to the couch by the scruff of her neck, only to stop dead in her tracks, one foot hovering a half-inch off the floor, suddenly afraid to step.

Ami Mizuno sat at her desk, right where Makoto had left her an hour ago, fast asleep. One of her arms formed an improvised pillow above her textbook, against which her cheek was resting, her head facing Makoto. Ami's reading glasses had been pushed up to her forehead, and Makoto could see the slow, gentle rhythms of her breaths. It looked like she'd drooled a little in her sleep, wetting her copy of _Fatigue: Neural and Muscular Mechanisms_.

Makoto wanted to laugh and cry at the same time. There was no denying the cuteness of Ami's posture - she was half-tempted to find a camera and take a quick snap for posterity - but it was also a little saddening. Ami's skin was paler than it had been in high school, almost translucent from lack of sunlight, from day after day of sequestered study sessions. There were dark rings under her eyes, a testament to too many nights with too little sleep, and red marks on her nose from where her reading glasses had dug in.

"Oh, Ami…" Makoto whispered to herself, taking a handkerchief from her pocket and dabbing at the pool of saliva.

Makoto had half a mind to just leave her as she was, but she knew that that position would give Ami one hell of a cramp when she woke up. Which meant that Ami needed to be moved to a bed, as gently as possible.

Getting Ami out of her chair required some awkward maneuvering, made easier by the fact that Ami was very light, and Makoto was very strong. She slid one of her arms beneath Ami's thighs and the other behind her back, lifting up the smaller woman with a roll and a scoop, so that she was holding Ami in a sort of bridal carry.

It was a testament to Makoto's gentleness - and Ami's sheer exhaustion - that the latter did not awaken, at least, not entirely. Ami stirred a little in Makoto's arms, the slight change to the rhythms of her breaths suggesting she'd slipped from REM sleep to that liminal state on the cusp of consciousness. Ami was light in Makoto's arms - lighter than Makoto remembered, making her wonder if Ami had been losing weight. It wouldn't have been the exam season that Ami had lost a few pounds, nervousness and monomania causing her to skip meals, but she was so light already…

Makoto carried Ami into the bedroom, stamping down her subconscious' desire to make a flippant remark about her own matrimonial fantasies. She set Ami down with her head on a pillow, removing her arms out from under the young woman with as much delicateness as she could manage. The idea of joining Ami in bed was certainly a tempting one, but Makoto knew she herself was far too awake for that to work, and didn't want her own restless tossing and turning to keep Ami awake. She'd have to settle for tucking her beloved in.

Once her cargo had been safely deposited on the mattress, Makoto moved to pull the sheets up over her. It was just at this final step, of course, that Ami's eyes blinked opened, with Makoto drawing the bed sheets up to her shoulders.

"_Mako_…" she breathed, her voice barely above a whisper. And then she let out a truly decadent groan, as the comfort of the bed and the blankets permeated her, exhausted muscles crying their thanks in relief.

"Hey, Ami," Makoto said in reply, kneeling down by the side of the bed, so her face was level with Ami's. Her hand absent-mindedly made its way to Ami's face, combing tangled strands of blue.

Ami's eyes drifted shut at Makoto's touch, though only for a few moments. She stirred herself awake again, staring at Makoto with those big, beautiful eyes of hers. "Oh, I'm sorry, did I miss _Utena_? I know you wanted to watch it tonight…"

Makoto's hand froze for a half-second, before resuming its gentle strokes, a small smile on her face. "No, uh, it wasn't on tonight," Makoto said. "Looked like it was a special episode of that _Pokémon_ anime."

Ami exhaled through her nose, looking relieved. Makoto hated the thought of lying to Ami, but that last thing the poor woman needed was for guilt to be layered atop exhaustion.

"That's too bad," Ami murmured, though the pillow was muffling her voice, the tendrils of sleep reclaiming her. "Though those Pokémon are cute, too."

"Yeah," Makoto agreed, brushing across Ami's cheek with her hand. "Your alarm's already set for tomorrow, so don't worry about that. But I think it'll be a 'breakfast in bed' kind of day."

Ami sighed. "I love you, too," she said, with her final ounce of waking energy.

Makoto smiled, leaning forward to press her lips to Ami's forehead. "I'll see you in the morning."

She closed the door gently behind her, leaving her beauty to sleep.

[AUTHOR'S NOTES]

Thank you for your readership! Please feel free to leave any comments, thoughts, feedback, or headcanons in the comments. Criticism is the only way I'll ever get better as a writer. I'm also active on both reddit and Tumblr, in both places under the username "pvoberstein", and on AO3 on the username "Liara_90", where you can find over 100 of my short stories.

Special Thanks to the Tuxedo Unmasked article "How Rich is Ami Mizuno?" for teaching me the word _okushon_. I've been on a bit of an Ami/Makoto binge lately, and I just got the idea for this scene stuck in my head. Please let me know if you'd be interested in seeing more like it.


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